Regular City Council Meeting April 4, 2017

0:03:00hi if everyone wants to take a seat if you want to speak you might want to go ahead and get a speaker slip and be ready to turn it in when you're ready what 15 i can have everyone's attention uh we'll go ahead and get started okay this is the meeting of the el cerrito

0:03:44city council for april the 4th and we will begin with a pledge of allegiance to the flag or an observation of a moment of silence for those who wish and it's going to be led by council member quinto i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america

0:04:08and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you the next item on the agenda is counsel and staff communications are there any council communications yes we'll be talking about this more in the program but i just wanted to make the

0:04:36announcement that a group of citizens have formed a group called services not sales and there will be a services not sales sells and kickoff on which will oppose the expansion of the west county detention center and the kickoff will be saturday april 15th from 11 a.m

0:05:02to 12 30 p.m at the richmond recreation complex social hall at 3230 mcdonald avenue in richmond 94804 anything else that's all okay on march 22nd i attended the mtc a bag meeting in sacramento a workshop which senators in our local bay area and assembly members spoke on bills that

0:05:35they're working on so many of the bills we have over 100 affordable housing and housing bills and we also have an important transportation bill so i would love to have all of you take a look and look at our transportation bill and and know in my opinion how important it is that

0:05:59we get this done so also on the next day i attended the west county mayor's meeting in hercules with janet abelson our mayor and it was a nice meeting which mayors spoke about the importance of in the summertime we will be having volunteers also working here at city

0:06:27hall to add on the resumes so they're ready to go to college the following year so i look forward to that we have that every year here in el cerrito and look forward in having a new group again this year okay great yeah um vice mayor quinto and i attended the california league of

0:06:49cities meeting we both serve on the environmental policy committee and on friday we both voted in favor of supporting that the league of cities supports sb 231 um which is a bill that will change the definition of sewer to include uh not just our sanitary sewer but our storm

0:07:13sewers so that we can have local funding or more funding return to us so that we can do some of the mandates uh to create clean storm water and implement capital improvements in our city that to reduce the amount of polluted stormwater that leaves our city and um that was

0:07:33probably the most uh informative and and act largest action that we took on that day it certainly dominated the discussion and was a very controversial vote and passed 21 to 20. so it was wonderful to be there and represent you guys so we can get the type of funding

0:07:52necessary to keep our bay clean um yes um on march 24th uh mayor abelson and i attended the warm springs bart opening with a lot of fanfare down in fremont and yesterday in a similar vein i was able to attend in sacramento at the capitol uh the hearing that the governor

0:08:14was at for in support of sb1 the transit and fix our roads bill that's going through the legislature that should be up on thursday it's going to be a tough vote we're hoping it will pass thank you and um i've been a number of places i was recently at an event at contra

0:08:33costa college we had a really interesting speaker uh for the uh it was actually advertised as a mixer of the richmond chamber of commerce but the speaker that we had uh was um really uh inspiring i think he uh had been in san quentin and he had been released after serving

0:08:59over 20 years as a result of change in law and so he talked about uh you know what had what had happened in his life and he uh really was um almost rescued because somebody from a dot-com uh company had faith in him and hired him and he was he is currently an executive in that

0:09:30company as a result and he was a very uh inspirational speaker and he i think everyone in the room was really moved at um uh what an impressive person he was uh there was a huge crowd there speaking of contra costa college they're having their 10th annual food and wine

0:09:55event on sunday april 23rd from the hours of let's see here 11 a.m to 2 30 p.m in the fireside hall that's one of the new buildings on campus they've been doing a lot of building that's on a sunday the 23rd and if you're interested if you get a ticket in advance it's 35 otherwise it's

0:10:2540 dollars and it helps to support the contra costa college culinary arts scholarship program which is a very worthwhile program and i would encourage you all to do so if you are available in addition to that i want to mention that the el cerrito affordable housing strategy will be

0:10:53presented at community workshops and there will be several of them one will be on april the 8th from 10 a.m to noon right here in this room at city hall and then there will be a second one on affordable housing policy recommendations and that will be on tuesday may 23rd

0:11:15from 7 pm to 8 30 pm also here in city hall and everyone is encouraged to attend light freshments will be provided and spanish and chinese translation will be available if you want information about it you can look on our website www dot elsa l dash cerrito.org slash affordable housing or

0:11:45you can also call katherine allquist at 215-4361 or contact her at h l q u i s t at c i dot e l dash cerrito dot c a dot u s and i imagine it'll be a really interesting program we've got a number of potential projects happening that include affordable housing about which we are

0:12:18very excited as a city and let's see then as was noted i attended the west county mayors and supervisors association and i um i won't repeat that information i also attended the wic tech meeting on april 4th and it was [Music] not a very long meeting because in fact

0:12:50everyone was leaving to go to the bart opening but but we did have a an agenda and the two items of note that we covered were one was a status report on i-80 which as you may have noticed if you've been out there is in really bad shape the pavement is really has really been negatively impacted by

0:13:18the r the rains that have been occurring and i-80 was due for rehab in about two years and uh they're going to move it up because of concerns expressed from this area and the segment that they'll be moving up that i'm talking about is actually the contra costa uh segment from the alameda county

0:13:41border to the carkiness bridge and so hopefully there will be some relief because it's really really bumpy out there and there were some recommendations on the appropriation of some tlc money and we were in the scoring on that one and did receive a very pleasant shall we say

0:14:08sum of funds from that program so that will be really good for helping us do some much-needed work and then let's see that one's already done and [Music] so i also went to the um east let's see the east i think that one's already done no no i think one isn't okay i also went to the

0:14:39east bay division meeting of the league of california cities which was held at the mira vista country club which we can still call the mira vista country club for the moment and it was the speaker spoke on closing the pension gap and it was a pretty interesting

0:15:00presentation we heard from somebody from calpers which is the retirement system for many um public employees in the state of california and includes those in our city and uh so that was a pretty interesting thing and i was also at the league of california city's policy committee meetings but i

0:15:30went to different committee meetings one of at one of them i heard more about the calpers issues with um finding adequate resources to provide the needed funding for funding the retirements of the future generations of retirees coming out of our public agencies and

0:16:00it's pretty dire but we did hear about it and let's see i think that's enough i think i'll stop and um with that we will move on to the next item which is staff communications are there any not seeing any okay then with that we will move on to oral communications from the public and this

0:16:27is for for items that are not anywhere else on the agenda and it's also for any items on the consent calendar so if you want to talk about any of those items this would be the time to do it and if you don't have a speaker slip you can get one from the city clerk up here

0:16:47and we'll go ahead and see how many speakers do we have we have 18 speakers mayor maybe we did something interesting last time we had a lot of speakers and so we did a used a technique that was kind of uh made up on the spot that seemed to work pretty well i'd like to use it again tonight

0:17:09and what it is is that if you agree with somebody who's speaking you just sort of raise your hands like this and to show your agreement and one of the interesting things i noticed from where i am is that it kind of showed the intensity of the support so it was kind of an interesting thing

0:17:32and so if you don't mind uh we will do it again tonight is that a wave that would be a wave that would be an el cerrito wave and then the other thing that happened uh is that when the when council was up was doing the same thing when we were talking so so uh we will be if if

0:17:53we are so inclined we'll be doing it too you shouldn't feel that you have to but if you want to do that we welcome it and it's actually much you know we can that way we can move along and everybody gets to speak and i will not reduce anybody's speaking time from uh the usual three minutes so

0:18:12everybody gets three minutes even though we have a number of speakers so with that let's go ahead and get started if you don't mind mayor i'll call them three at a time please so supervisor john joya followed by delfina fung and jean rabovsky so just to be clear this

0:18:30is on the consent item on on the letter regarding the jail proposal right yes okay so that's i assume that's what these speakers are on all right um good evening yes but i might be good evening i'm uh john joy i'm proud to represent el cerrito on the board of supervisors

0:18:46and let me first start by saying um thank you and wanted to applaud your decision at a recent meeting to change your um public safety dispatch to the the new the dispatch center that's a combined fire ambulance public safety dispatch in martinez because that is

0:19:04going to improve response time for el cerrito residents so that was a great decision in fact we already documented that when we combined our ambulance and fire dispatch into one center that the average response time improved by 51 seconds i know you have a nurse on the council you understand

0:19:21every all of you understand nurses especially that every second counts so um in fact i know mayor abels and i were at the el cerrito plaza that day when we saw someone calling and how long that took so that shouldn't happen so i want to applaud the leadership of your staff

0:19:35your fire chief police chief on that issue i'm here to say a few words on the jail proposal since you have a draft letter to oppose the jail application to the state i appreciate your leadership on this issue that's not always easy i will say a few words about why i

0:19:54opposed it and and really be honest as to this proposal the process started when a number of years ago the state legislature approved a a bond measure to allow counties to apply to for for jail construction but what the state did in its um guidelines is say that all projects must

0:20:18have a component to provide for program and services for those who are incarcerated so honestly i think what's happened around the state a number of counties including our own have put in much larger proposals than frankly that bond legislation called for proposals will go

0:20:37well beyond just providing um beds and services for those who are incarcerated like those who are have mental health issues and those who need other reentry services so this particular proposal that that i opposed calls for essentially building approximately 420 high security

0:20:58cells at the west county detention facility in richmond and to transfer those from existing cells in martinez an important point nothing prevents the sheriff from in the future of reopening the cells in martinez that he is closing to build the cells in richmond when the richmond facility was

0:21:18built in the early 90s it's been built as a low and medium security facility so this would be the introduction of the first high security um cells at the richmond jail um only about 24 of those are specifically dedicated for individuals with serious mental health

0:21:38issues um up to 96 are for those with some level of substance abuse mental health issues but remember the proposal is for 420.

0:21:50it it is the the county is seeking a 70 million dollar grant from the state that would be matched by 25 million dollars from the county 22 million being cash 3 million property and then the ongoing cost of that proposal would be 5 million dollars a year about additional

0:22:07operating costs yet to be identified in the sheriff and county budget why is this some much larger than it what needs to be and why i believe it should be opposed one is there is a lot of work being done today to one reduce the existing jail population we are looking at a bill reform system

0:22:27and once fully implemented the hope is that more individuals will be released um prior to prior to trial 70 of individuals in county jail are awaiting trial only 30 percent have been adjudicated there is good research that shows that if we have a risk model for bail instead

0:22:49of a financial model we can reduce the number of individuals in county jail awaiting trial that increases jail capacity without the need to add additional space second the sheriff currently for a number of years has had a contract with the us department of justice

0:23:07to house and incarcerate about 200 ice detainees the board of supervisors doesn't have the power to terminate that contract that is under the sheriff's constitutional authority which we respect i believe that that contract should be terminated i believe it comes at a cost to the trust that

0:23:26immigrant hard-working immigrant communities have immigrant families have in local law enforcement i appreciate your action of this council with regard to sanctuary um city policy i think that helps establish trust we are already hearing that uh individuals immigrant families both

0:23:46documented and not documented are canceling appointments for health and mental health services out of fear of trust trust issues anxiety and concern that's not the environment we want to have we want to make sure that immigrant communities understand that they can come to the county and

0:24:04local community organizations for services so those 200 beds that are currently being used to house ice detainees should be spent that should be used for our local needs not the federal government's needs so if the i believe had the sheriff come in with a proposal that was much smaller

0:24:23focused just on mental health beds um that it would be a better proposal worthy of funding as it is it would involve 25 million dollars in county dollars to construct and 5 million a year in ongoing cost 2 million of that 5 million are extra deputies in the sheriff

0:24:40in the jail we can better spend those services including on mental health pre-incarceration all the data shows if we invest in mental health services prior to incarceration we have a better chance of success and we do acknowledge the need to continue to provide more services to

0:24:56those who are incarcerated and that's also why we invested 5 million a year to in in post incarceration re-entry services so i just wanted to lay the groundwork why why why this proposal is much bigger than than needs to be to serve the intended population because it is essentially

0:25:16420 high secured new high security beds in richmond and i will close with the comment that um i know others will will will recognize this it really does take a coalition to express your position to sacramento so the the board of state and community corrections will meet either in may or june to make

0:25:35a decision as to whether contra costa would uh receive this 70 million dollars in state funding there are other counties who've applied for these funds if the board decides not to award the funds to contra costa my hope is that we can come back with a project that is more focused on the

0:25:56mental health beds and providing services and less on constructing hundreds of new high security beds if the state does agree toward contra costa with funding this issue will come back to our board of supervisors where we'll take a four-fifths vote of the board to

0:26:11appropriate 15 million dollars out of our general fund reserve so this issue will be back before our board um if the state and because of the foreign fiscal requirement so that's the context thank you for uh putting this on your agenda and appreciate your uh position to oppose

0:26:33this to the state which may um be of some consequence richmond has also sent a letter as well thank you thank you so now we'll go on to the next speaker delfina fung followed by jean rabovsky and maria alegrea good evening council members city manager and city staff my name is

0:26:53delfinofon i have been a resident of el cerrito since 1984 and homeowner since 1991.

0:27:00today i'm here to ask the council to review our ordinance 6.55 which is the alarm system code it was enacted enacted in 2010 april and in particular the provision 6.55040 regarding existing alarm users that existed at that time and i was one of them the reason why i'm here is that i think

0:27:26that particular provisions should be amended to exempt existing alarm users at that time to be exempted from the application of the permit and permit fee process the reason to supporting that proposal is because i believe there was not adequate notice and comment period

0:27:48before that ordinance was enacted and secondly it made an act that was legal became illegal when that act was enacted for example mine was installed in 1991 and i was not aware of this ordinance until two weeks ago out of the blue i got a letter from the police department

0:28:08telling me that it's an infection if i don't actually apply for a permit then i contacted the alarm company i contacted lieutenant benini and no one knew why that letter was all of a sudden sent to me and then i also contacted the alarm system and tried to find out whether the

0:28:26alarm system is even linked to the police and it's not so at this point the 6.55040 is being implemented discriminately against existed alarm users back in 2010 because first it makes it an impression for those users but for the newcomers it's only a civil penalty in post uh

0:28:51situation and second like i mentioned there was not adequate notice and hearing period and thirdly nowadays when people actually install wireless alarm systems they don't even have a box outside the house so in that case if police patrol around and just target people that have the boxes which were

0:29:09the old timers that's the discrimination act in my view and then the other issue i see is that we could even go one step further which is to actually even exclude or amend it not require any permit application fee process we are not talking about the false alarm because

0:29:31when i research it i think it was enacted to address the false alarm issue so we could to me i think we could leave that intact and if for the city's revenue purpose we could try to adjust the fee but even to for a call to amount to a false alarm there's a long process a

0:29:51protocol for it to take place so to me in conclusion i feel that at least the existent users of the alarm systems back in 2010 should be exempted from the application process for the permit and the fee and the renewal should all be exempted for those users and go one step further to exclude for all

0:30:15the users if you could wrap up because your time is expired please okay yeah that's it so i would like our last thing is that um lieutenant bonini did mention that he was supported but i'm not sure whether he's here today i spoke to him on the phone but we never met in person thank

0:30:33you for listening followed by maria alegrea and al miller good evening my name is gene wilbowski and i reside in el cerrito i want to thank the el cerrito city council for voting last session to identify el cerrito as a sanctuary city your action is an important first step

0:31:06towards making el cerrito a safe and democratic community for all its members including those of the immigrant community more however needs to be done and although various groups and individuals may be working on individual recommendations i want to call your attention to one

0:31:26the american civil liberties union aclu has developed a model state and local laws enforcement policy that consists of nine rules and maybe other policies to be followed by law enforcement officers now for those in the city council who do not have this i did provide copies of it so you can be

0:31:49reading it but legalese aside the model the model policy sets to defend our neighbors from mass deportations it protects our neighbors from invasion of privacy and it also helps our neighbors with with redress of grievances when are necessary and it also ensures the protection of

0:32:13our neighbors against discrimination i really do hope that the el cerrito city council will incorporate these nine model rules or policies call them what you will enforcement policies as a part of an overall program to ensure el cerrito becomes a safe and democratic place for all of its people

0:32:36thank you thank you next good evening uh madam mayor and honorable members of the city council my name is maria alegria i live in pinol but i'm also the chair of the democratic party of contra costa county it's the official organization that represents over 300 and 111 000

0:33:05registered democrats in contra costa county and at our membership meeting uh two weeks ago we took a position also opposing the uh jail expansion in west contra costa county and i'm here um to just urge you to also to thank you for taking the leadership to oppose this

0:33:24expansion and i just wanted to share a few things that we shared in our letter to the the board of state community corrections the first thing is that the sheriff livingston's application is flawed his application does not state that he has a contract with the u.s department

0:33:45of justice to house approximately 200 ice prisoners detainees a day for possible deportation as supervisor joya mentioned that's about 20 percent of the jail's capacity that could be used to meet the county's needs not the federal governments and also he's disingenuous in stating

0:34:07that he has no capacity at the west county detention facility to alleviate the overcrowding at the martinez jail this cooperation with ice should end it erodes a hard-working immigrant communities trust and local law enforcement and the county government secondly contra costa is the only bay

0:34:28area county with an ice contract this contract nets three million dollars to the sheriff's 226 million dollar budget this is unconscionable jails built at california taxpayer expense should not be used for profit or federal immigration detention centers thirdly

0:34:50sheriff livingston's application violates the public trust of the taxpayers in 1991 the west county detention facility was built at a cost of 48 million dollars of bond money it was touted as the jail of the 21st century it was going to alleviate the overcrowding at the mark martinez county

0:35:14jail to provide quality substance abuse programming education and literacy to low-risk inmates voters statewide approved 1.1 billion dollars to purchase these bonds and the objective was clear it was to alleviate the overcrowding in the jails not to pay for detention centers

0:35:38so to sheriff livingston to deviate from the intent of the voters and use this facility as a detention is a blatant violation of the public trust i just want to urge your i want to thank you for your leadership and also to urge you to please ask the sheriff to terminate his contract

0:36:01with ice and to use the west county detention facility for its intended purpose which was to alleviate the overcrowding at the martinez county jail thank you al miller followed by marlene keller and tom panas good evening mayor abelson council members staff i'm al miller i live in el cerrito

0:36:26i speak tonight in support of your intended actions in support of senator dodd's sca-3 public libraries complement public schools and other schools in our communities and the city should have the same opportunities to build libraries and fund libraries as they do to fund

0:36:46and build schools the el cerrito library foundation as i reported earlier has also sent supporting letters to the government senate government and finance committee as well as to all of the committee members so most of the board members sent personal letters also

0:37:10and the only suggestion i would make is that in addition to sending letters to the committee chair you send copies of that letter to each member of the government finance and education committee i also speak in support of your intended action to oppose the west county contra

0:37:30costa detention facility expanding this facility in support of providing some 200 beds to house ice detainees awaiting deportation just doesn't make sense as already described very elegantly by superintendent joya and well as being contrary to the sanctuary city policies of cities in the

0:37:51west county of which thankfully you made us one i also would like to thank and commend city arborist stephen pray for his continued support and supervision of our baxter creek work day which happens on the first saturday of each month and i'd like to invite anybody that

0:38:12doesn't have anything else to do saturday morning from 10 to 12 30 to join us at where conlon avenue joins the the entrance into the baxter creek there and see how much fun you can have weeding native plants pulling out intrusive plants picking up litter one thing you might be interested in

0:38:36the amount of cigarette butts actually along the path last saturday was far fewer than it's normally there the number of cigarette butts on san pablo avenue at the where the baxter creek pathway and exits is pretty much the same so i wonder if we'll notice a difference

0:38:56now that on april 1st the cigarette tax was raised two dollars per pack so hopefully it'll continue the trend thank you very much next speaker marlene keller followed by tom panas and judith tannenbaum good evening mayor abelson city council members and staff my name is marlene keller and i live in

0:39:20el cerrito i ask that you oppose the state's plan to expand the west county detention facility for three reasons which you've really heard already first this is a terrible waste of taxpayer money with funds in short supply at the state and local level it makes no sense for the state to spend

0:39:40over 70 million on a jail expansion and even less sends for the county to spend at least five million dollars per year for jail operations second this jail expansion is described as added beds for the mentally ill and some improved services for prisoners and their families

0:40:01yet we know that the plan looks like just a device for incarcerating ice detainees and collecting ice reimbursement with no real value at all for the county's most vulnerable populations third the sheriff is asking for a facility expansion that voters for years have vigorously opposed

0:40:23because the people in contra costa county know that community services matter far more to their well-being than a jail as the mayor eloquently described an ex-con getting help means everything it builds public trust and adds to our economy and it rebuilds lives

0:40:41this proposal would not do that many el cerrito residents will see a disappearing amount of social services and their safety net under planned national policies and as you've seen the omb blueprint budget cuts the harm here like elsewhere will hit very hard and put many people even in el

0:41:04cerrito at risk thus now is the time for our beloved city to oppose any external measure that ignores these much needed services and devalues our people the community service and fiscal accountability values that you have beautifully enshrined in our city strategic plan

0:41:28urge you to oppose this terrible jail expansion thank you next speaker good evening mayor abelson members of the council and city staff my name is tom panis and i live at [address removed] and el cerrito your el cerrito community garden team has been carefully sourcing seeds from

0:41:53both local backyards as well as known and well reputed commercial organic gardeners we just restocked our two seed libraries this week and we'll be restocking them again in a week or two our seed libraries are free to everyone there's one located at the elsewhere

0:42:10branch of the contra costa county library and one located at the recycling center thanks for your time this evening judith tannenbaugh followed by tommy roth and elizabeth brown hello i'm mayor and city council and staff thank you very much i want to begin by thanking you again for the last

0:42:31meeting for the the votes um for the sanctuary city and for supporting sb 54 and for writing a letter in opposition to the county ice contract and also for your um personal statements which were so um rich and moving and compelling so i want to give a lot of gratitude for that

0:42:55um i you must be not know that i'm very happy about this letter um that rochelle's written um as i've kind of asked mentioned it in um in public comments before and i was so glad last week and then today as well that so many of the those speaking with in public comments

0:43:19recognize that there's only so much um real protection that a sanctuary city can have if there's gonna the county has a contract with ice um i want to um sherry drumner made a couple flyers that are going to be out here and this one lists the um launch of the um services not sells the

0:43:43uh racial justice coalition um opposition to the um um sheriff's proposal so this is information about the meeting time that rochelle read before and then there's another long piece that rochelle that sherry um created that that lists a lot of the facts and information that supervisor

0:44:02joy and others have um mentioned today and that's up there as well i've summarized my thoughts as well as i could in that op-ed piece that i know cheryl sent that cheryl sent to you so i won't repeat that here i made a few copies of that and i'll put that over there as

0:44:20well i wanted to add here that um that a couple of us including alisa who's going to speak in a bit went to speak with senator skinner about 10 days ago and and she came out and you know she's gonna she's made her public her opposition um to this proposal as well

0:44:41said she's writing a letter to the um bscc and um and so that was very encouraging and the last thing i was going to say is that if anybody here wants to write a letter and hasn't yet written a letter to the bscc i don't have copies of it but i have one piece of paper with the address of where

0:45:03to send that letter and i'll put that up here as well thank you very much thank you next speaker tommy nagati roth followed by elizabeth brown and janaki sullivan good evening mayor and city council members and staff my name is tomi nagai rota i'm an el sweda resident and a member of el sveda

0:45:26progressives i would just like to underscore what supervisor joya and judith tannenbaum said i'm very strongly in support of councilmember pardue okimoto's letter that opposes the west county detention facility expansion i think like many of us i support the services not sales approach

0:45:49to our our city and our county and i think many of us feel that we need really good physical and mental health services education well-paying jobs and affordable housing and we do not need a larger jail as the prison law office found quote the county would be would better serve its

0:46:09population by expanding efforts to reduce the jail population instead of expanding the capacity of its jails end quote so i really feel that your letter is an important and necessary step on the heels of your very brave work on the sanctuary resolution our immigrant residents and visitors are

0:46:31just too vulnerable to being pulled in to the ice detention system through the west county detention facility and i have a huge concern that the jail funds would increase the number of ice detainees in the west county jail thank you so much for your advocacy on behalf of all

0:46:49el cerrito residents to judith's comment we brought some um flyers for folks who are interested that have information on who to contact there are actually several people at the bureau of state and community corrections their email addresses their personal voicemail

0:47:06numbers so they're all up there on thank you so much betty brown followed by johnny sullivan and sarah backer good evening madam mayor and members of the council i'm elizabeth brown officially but i'm glad to be called betty and i'm a retired school public health

0:47:37nurse i'm a long time member of the league of women voters locally and the el cerrito democratic club and i co-chair the east bay peace action chapter and i'm going to keep my remarks very brief i'm going to say what essentially i said to the state board in my letter

0:47:55which is that it seems ridiculous to me that the board of supervisors should spend 25 million dollars on a facility that lacks in an area that lacks a community hospital thank you very much janaki sullivan hello um i'm janaki sullivan i've been an el cerrito resident since 2008 el

0:48:24cerrito homeowner since 2012.

0:48:26i never used to come to these things and i think by now y'all are getting tired of my face um so first of all i i wanted to thank the the city council for your passionate dedicated support of all el cerrito residents your vote for sanctuary city policy to support a similar policy in contra costa

0:48:53county more generally and in support of sb 54 as well as your deep and incredible personal comments um at the previous meeting just make me prouder and prouder every single day to be an el cerrito resident um i also want to thank councilmember perdue okamoto for her wonderful letter

0:49:17and thank you guys hopefully in advance for um for supporting that letter in opposition to the jail expansion there's not a whole lot that i can add that um that john joya and and other speakers before me haven't said better but i will add my voice to theirs it is absolutely critical

0:49:41to as the campaign says have services not cells um countless uh professionals sociologists psychologists uh you know just about every single discipline that there is uh understand that services for folks that are reintegrating into society are what prevents recidivism

0:50:06and services for vulnerable residents prior to any encounter with law enforcement or what prevent folks from uh you know ending up in jail in the first place this is where we need to put our funds not into expanding jail facilities we need to sink those funds deep into the roots of

0:50:27our community feed us from the ground up and let us build a vibrant community and a strong community not more jail cells i am also very concerned about the implications for expanding a jail when we are already using up 200 of those beds as ice detention facilities

0:50:53obviously i am very opposed to the ice contract i hope that you city council will also voice your opposition to that contract but this just seems like you know taking from peter to feed paul and it's just awful um i also encourage every single person here present today

0:51:16to pick up this lovely services not cells kick off flyer even if you can't yourself attend on april 15th pick it up for your family and friends thank you thank you sarah baker followed by jess laird and donna crawford hello my name is sarah bocker i'm a resident of el cerrito um i'm going to

0:51:40say a few things that will sound a little familiar um echoing much of what people have said here but hopefully adding a little bit of specificity um i'm a member of uh aclu people power the el cerrito branch of the um the el cerita organizing committee i'm here to

0:51:58also thank the city council for passing the sanctuary resolution um and also specifically to to express gratitude to the police department for showing support for the resolution and to express gratitude for the initiative shown by the human relations commissioners in developing programming

0:52:16that builds a culture of inclusiveness and mutual care in our community i and other members of the aclu people power group strongly believe that our work in this community can't stop with the sanctuary resolution this is clear when we pay attention to the social and cultural effects of the

0:52:35political rhetoric we all hear every day coming out of the highest seats of power in the land there's ample documented social scientific research showing that this kind of stigmatizing rhetoric has devastating real world consequences for families in the bay area

0:52:52it makes children afraid to go to school families afraid to seek medical care women afraid to report domestic violence and many members of the community afraid to report crimes and seek assistance from our law enforcement this is a matter that transcends the small town of el cerrito but we can

0:53:09still do our part to mitigate the damage in the coming weeks and months we will advocate for strengthening specific policies and oversight mechanisms throughout this level of government but in the meantime we also ask the city council to reflect on the the the effect that the work of the human

0:53:26relations commission has on the work of the crime prevention commission and vice versa law enforcement has effects on the community's social well-being just as the community's social well-being has effects on crime prevention the task of ensuring that every elsa

0:53:41readen feels safe and included has multiple fronts we recognize that it's complicated and requires some coordination and coalition building we look forward to ongoing dialogue with the city council the human relations committee the prime the crime prevention committee and the police department to

0:53:59ensure that we are doing everything we can to make sure el cerrito feels like home for everyone who lives here thank you thank you good evening mayor and council members and city staff i've come to these meetings and given public comment before usually representing a group or an organization

0:54:22that i'm a part of but on this issue i thought it was most appropriate to speak to you as a social worker i'm taught to evaluate issues through the lens of the six core values of the social work profession which are human relationships dignity and worth of the person social justice competence

0:54:39integrity and service and that's how i approach the issue of the proposed jail expansion the value of human relationships tells me that meaningful change best happens in the context of relationships support systems and communities the value of dignity and worth of the person reminds

0:54:55me that every person whether they're sitting in this room or in a jail cell has strengths and potential that can be put to use for positive change if given the opportunity the value of social justice compels me to use my voice to advocate for those who are marginalized underserved

0:55:12or impacted by cyclical issues like poverty discrimination and incarceration the value of competence causes me to form my opinion based on evidence-based truths like studies that show that investing in community resources is a much healthier and sustainable way to

0:55:28decrease a jail population the value of integrity reminds me that doing the right thing sometimes means thinking outside the box to solve a problem rather than defaulting to a seemingly obvious solution like expanding a crowded jail the value of service tells me that

0:55:45investing in resources that can help people thrive is always the right thing to do so as a social worker this is an easy position for me to take so i join everyone who has spoken before me and asking you to use your position of influence to oppose the jail expansion

0:56:00and instead redirect funds to community resources and services thank you thank you donna crawford followed by sherry dropner and michelle mendieta mitchell good evening i'm donna crawford and i live in el cerrito i'm also a member of the aclu people power and i would like to build on my

0:56:22colleagues previous comments our organization would like to bring to the council's attention the aclu freedom city initiative which sets forth the nine policies that have been previously referenced that cities all over the country are codifying in order to better serve our

0:56:40communities our organization is working at the city county and state level to strengthen the principles that vouch safe the rights and dignity of everyone among us we are pleased to learn in our meeting with police chief keith in late march that the police department already

0:57:01practices many of the policies that we're concerned about we do have specific areas of concern that we don't feel the policies currently in place go far enough to ensure that the entire community is fully protected up until now el cerrito has benefited from our law enforcement officers stated

0:57:24and shared commitment to community policing we see and value that commitment yet we're also aware that the success of such an approach can rely too much on individual goodwill personal discretion and internal oversight in a complex and increasingly fearful political climate

0:57:48we see the benefit of having each of these policies formally call it codified clarity transparency transparency and public accountability can only strengthen the policies and the bonds of communication and trust between law enforcement and the community in the coming weeks and months we will

0:58:10be approaching the human relations commission as well as the crime prevention commission commission to discuss the grounds for our concern as well as strategies to explore for making our city's policies as effective as they can be we hope to begin a positive and

0:58:28collaborative dialogue with you and the city police to work toward doing the best we can do for all our neighbors we oppose of course expanding the jail and encourage instead services thank you thank you sherry druvner right hi good evening um i do want to thank you

0:58:54for adopting the sanctuary city resolution at your last meeting it was a fantastic meeting and i appreciated all the words that were said there's been a lot said here this evening so i don't have to go through all my notes but but i didn't want to say something

0:59:12and i really do appreciate the fact that this letter is being brought up to oppose the expansion of west county jail the county faces a crisis in housing and a crisis in mental health so there's this irony that we're going to deal with the issue by taking we're going to look

0:59:29at we're going to put mental health into our jail that's that's just not doesn't make sense to me and i feel like i work in the city of richmond i work with adults who every day have mental health issues have housing issues half the participants in my program are homeless

0:59:49um this we we are always looking for mental health services and there just isn't enough we are looking for housing there isn't enough and and so the irony of thinking that we want to spend this kind of money you know to expand our jail and also knowing as was well said

1:00:07that it's a ruse i mean it's a cover for um you know expanding not really expanding services but expanding the number of beds i was at an initial meeting when the sheriff's department proceeded to explain the project and this was a long time ago it was at a re-entry solutions group meeting and

1:00:30they came and i still have the paperwork and i couldn't understand how in fact west county was only 50 full and yet he said we have a shortage and then i realized oh i see they're they're going to move everyone out of martinez and then put him into os county and then oh okay now we don't

1:00:50have a shortage anymore so i just feel like it's really as the word was used disingenuous i think for the sheriff to submit the kind of proposal that's being submitted to take a um a step toward really a backwards step toward looking at um incarceration instead of services and so

1:01:13i do hope everyone will join on april 15th for the services not sales launch and take the information that we've provided to also write letters and hopefully we'll turn it around thank you ms ms mitchell followed by bridget acuna and doug jones good evening my name is michelle

1:01:43mendietha mitchell and i'm a newish el cerrito resident since september i'm also here to support the city council's letter opposing the proposed expansion of the west contra costa county detention center as a city and county our fund should be spent on rehabilitation and preventative services

1:02:06not on more cells for the mass incarceration of people of color in our county furthermore partnering with ice to detain and deport members of our community goes against the ideals our town has set forth in its sanctuary city resolution haven't we learned incarceration incarcerating even more

1:02:28people won't make our communities any safer we need to spend our resources on services that will benefit our community not on jail expansions thank you thank you uh good evening my name is bridget kennedy acuna and i'm speaking as a representative of the albany community action group

1:02:56um we're made up of nearly 350 facebook members i also worked for the contra costa county public health department for 12 years so contra costa county really has my heart i just want to say that and so it was very easy when asked two comments and come in support

1:03:15of to speak out against detention cell expansion it was you know a no-brainer i first want to also thank you so much for supporting sanctuary city albany is next but you really set the course for us and it's just hugely important that you did that because it will give us you know the

1:03:34strength and courage to do that too so again i just want to mention that i'm part of the albany community action group and as neighbors of contra costa communities also working for social and economic justice we wrote a letter to the state board as well and i just

1:03:50wanted to read some excerpts from that as concerned neighbors of contra costa county allied organizations such as the aca members of the local acl chapter and as individuals from the city of albany we are writing to advocate that you do not fund detention expansion in contra

1:04:07costa we believe that this use of money will be a bad investment for our region it feeds the prison pipeline disproportionately affecting and targeting communities of color it takes resources and money away from education education social and health services that our

1:04:22communities greatly need we are also extremely concerned that any expanded detention facilities will end up being used to house undocumented immigrants in order to repay the outlays for construction and operation that's been discussed earlier we are wary of how this may increase ice

1:04:39and border patrol agents activity in our region increased detention capability may thus directly affect vulnerable families from our community especially in the wake of recent aggressive executive orders and enforcement priorities targeting communities of color

1:04:55i'll just i'll just end with the last paragraph and i have some extra copies increasing funds for detention now especially in the context of highly charged rhetoric and fear will compound community concern about targeting of immigrants and minorities and will sow

1:05:10additional fear and uncertainty in immigrant and minority communities pushing people further into the shadows and complicating the job of local law enforcement the board needs to be sensitive to these concerns which go beyond contra costa county to neighboring cities like ours thus we

1:05:26urge you to deny approval to any monies for the west county detention center in this we stand with our neighbors in support of a fair and inclusive community and against the perpetuation of a system that enables the mass incarcera incarceration of people of color

1:05:41so um in a few days we were able to gather 40 signatures and i just want to give you copies and we're very much supportive so we'll get the word out about the event thank you doug jones is followed by georgina edwards and michael care uh thank you for the opportunity to

1:05:59speak uh council um my name is uh doug jones uh i am the political organizer for seiu united healthcare workers uh we represent over 5 000 health care workers here in contra costa county approximately 5 000 of our the members of our statewide union also live in

1:06:17contra costa county including many who live here in el cerrito we speak out in support of item 4i and we commend council member party locomoto for leading on this issue and we encourage you all to vote for the item um we do want to speak uh in particular support of uh the concept that's uh in

1:06:38the proposal here uh for the county to reprioritize uh its expenditures and look away to in from incarceration services and towards the re-establishment of acute care services in west county the members that we represent at kaiser richmond are experiencing a very very heavy load a unacceptably

1:07:04high load of acute care services that they're having to handle at their very very small facility we know that citizens here in el cerrito are suffering from a lack of proper emergency department and other acute care services and we're thankful that the city is leading on this issue and we're hopeful

1:07:24that you pass us today thank you thank you good evening council i'm here just kind of with my own thoughts for your consideration and perhaps guidance it's a wonderful moment in our town to see so many neighbors engaged and wanting to improve our our city and the experiences

1:07:50um that we face each day i can say since i was uh became commissioner about four years ago i can count in one hand the people that came to our meetings and most of them were other commissioners with with proposals to collaborate like with the crime uh prevention committee we we did

1:08:07a uh sort of a cleanup day similar to what al described and picked up cigarette butts rachelle was there um so um and i know that we're going to get a presentation this evening from karen on our strategic plan and something that i've um discovered in my volunteer work as a commissioner is how

1:08:27little understanding there is of all the thought that goes into setting goals and and the whole process multi-year process of getting community feedback to that strategic plan and i think what what um a lot of my learning has been in interacting with council interacting

1:08:46with staff that supports us and really growing to appreciate the hard work it's nuanced work it's it's sometimes late into the night that you do your work and i would encourage you as you consider your new goals for the year to think about additional ways of communicating

1:09:05and expressing to the community what the priorities are where where the funding goes how all these plans and possible future measures might fit into the top priorities so that everybody's aware and so that also commissioners as we are approached by community members to pursue perhaps

1:09:24additional topics that aren't necessarily in our core area how do we balance those two new new thoughts and and needs from the community with ongoing work that commissions are attached uh with and one idea i had is perhaps um you know there are lots of local uh

1:09:43journalists perhaps some stories on on staff and council that have served some i know for decades and why they continue to serve and how perhaps their role fits into strategic plan to really humanize that you're not government you're us and you work with us and for

1:10:02us and uh there's been so many examples of that and that has helped me learn um not just the theory but the practice of it and i know there are tools like open cell cerrito that have been established in the past that may be of service thank you very much thank you

1:10:27my name is michael kerr and i have a letter to submit but i'll read it make a brief statement i live in bay point but i came here to wish you uh wish a thank you for your recent decision to become a sanctuary city and your support for senate bill 54.

1:10:47i agree with many of the excellent speakers today in opposing the west county detention and center expansion i hope you will also act to pressure the board of supervisors to do the same as i live in bay point i will be working to get the city of pittsburgh to become a

1:11:09sanctuary city also and to get my supervisor federal glover to change his support for the detention center your actions here will help in this effort thank you thank you adele overa followed by alyssa king who is the last speaker my comments were for submission only but

1:11:36why not just get up and say what i wanted to say i'm a resident of city of concord and like michael here and many of the other speakers today i'm here to thank you for your recent actions today in support of of our immigrant community and i want to say that the reason i oppose a

1:11:57gel expansion is because i as myself as an immigrant know the fear that is caused in families knowing that at any point an interaction with police could cause health issues mental health issues fear and stress and family i am a naturalized citizen now but you're you're always an immigrant and

1:12:25you know what that feels like and you know what your community goes through when they think that the police that's supposed to protect them um is working with underground with another body of government that could deport them and that would really harm us as a county so we're like

1:12:47michael i'm hoping that your stance here would help other cities also join you to make the county change your decision thank you thank you alyssa king good evening my name is elisa kang and i'm a community organizer for california nurses association and i'm also a resident of west county

1:13:12i'm a resident of richmond i'm here representing cna and cna stands with other members of the contra costa county racial justice coalition to oppose this jail expansion project the proposed closure of berkeley's alta bates hospital following the closure in 2015 of doctors medical

1:13:36center in san pablo would exacerbate the county's current health care crisis already the number of staffed hospital beds in contra costa county at .7 beds per 1 000 residents as opposed the national average of 2.9 beds per 1 000 residents is dangerously dangerously low

1:13:57so i'm considering the struggles that people are facing locally in our county to access health care our county funds should be invested in expanding health care services in invested in affordable housing job creation rebuilding our infrastructure our education re-entry services and other programs

1:14:22that will help to strengthen our communities and help to reduce and prevent incarceration so i think this is we are facing very troubling times you know with our current administration and i think this is an opportunity for local leadership to show what we value as a community that we

1:14:47value investing in in people over prisons investing in community services over creating jails and i thank you rochelle pardo okamoto's council member and cna leader for introducing this and adding this to the agenda and to the entire city council for taking a stand against

1:15:05this gel expansion thank you oh and also thank you so much for your resolution opposing the closure of alta bates hospital thank you uh i believe that concludes i have no more requests to speak okay and that was on items not on the agenda and on the consent calendar so at this time

1:15:29we'll move to the consent calendar mayor if i may based on testimony i heard tonight i would like to pull for i so that we can make some modifications to the letter okay do you have a motion meanwhile um i would gladly move items four a which are minutes for b earth day

1:15:50proclamation thank goodness we've got an earth day 4c public education and government fee reauthorization ordinance 4d an annual partner parcel assessment for national pollution discharge elimination system program and drainage maintenance 4e calendar years 2014 2015 growth

1:16:07management checklists 4f cost allocation plan for g authorized annual report for landscape and lighting assessment district for fiscal year 1718 4h support for sca 3 local government finance and 4j environmental quality committee appointment i'll second okay so there is a motion by

1:16:31lyman seconded by uh quinto all in favor please say aye aye aye so there's only two eyes on that i said i couldn't hear it somehow okay so was that unanimous because i couldn't tell yes okay uh so it was unanimous thank you um so with that we will move on to item

1:16:55number five on the agenda which is presentations we do have a presentation on the uh el cerrito strategic plan goals in strategies report presented by um are we aren't we we still have to discuss i is that correct oh i'm sorry yes let's do i is there a motion on that one madam mayor although

1:17:21i would love to have the letter comment on our lack of emergency acute care facilities hospital services in west county i did not see a particular way to edit it and maybe somebody else's can find it in their hearts to help me with that i do want to add to the to the last

1:17:40paragraph which is recurrently reads additionally the facility may have been used inappropriately to inappropriately house ice detainees according to supervisor nearly 200 individual beds are being held for possible deportation at west county jail under a sheriff's contract

1:17:58with the u.s department of justice to house ice detainees that's the current paragraph to that end of that i would like to add if the state is considering the grant comma the state should require contra costa county sheriff livingston cancel his contract with ice so that contra

1:18:19costa is not unfairly benefiting from an ice contract while using revenues from throughout the state period additionally canceling the contract may well resolve some of the over overcrowding issues and i'd like to make sure that the copies are include the county

1:18:38supervisors and the sheriff livingston so that's your motion that would be my motion is to give you authorization to approve an amended letter as amended as i just read okay i'm not hearing a second is there a second i'll second that okay there's a motion by lineman

1:18:58seconded by quinto is there any discussion on that item yes i'd like to discuss it okay i'd like to discuss the item before we finalize it i just wanted to make everyone has spoken so well today and i i thank all everyone that came out and spoke on behalf of this letter

1:19:18in particular supervisor joya who is recovering from some health issues and made it out here today i really truly appreciate that there's a lot that i was going to say that's already been said so i'll try not to repeat what has already been said except for on february 7th when the

1:19:37board of supervisors voted for this the vote was 4-1 and supervisor joya was the only person that opposed the vote i was there on that day and i did speak against the expansion on that day and i was joined by about 50 other people that were also speaking against

1:20:00the expansion and it was actually just perplexing to me to see so many people come out and speak against the item in such a way and it had so little support amongst the community and yet the supervisors voted in that way it was particularly perplexing to me as a couple of years prior when

1:20:25as a nurse at the time we were asking the supervisors please help us keep doctors hospital open and they were saying you know what we don't have any money we can't help you and i understand that it's not exactly apples for apples and the figures don't all come out exactly the same

1:20:44but what i said that day and what i'll say again is that what do we tell our little boys and our little girls when there's not a hospital around but we have enough money to lock you up so my oppose my opposing this expansion is not the mental health services portion of it

1:21:05of course i do want to help people that are detained and do have mental health issues but as one of the the items i saw before me you know why would we have more mental health beds inside a detention facility than we do outside in the community it just doesn't make any sense so

1:21:29my opposition to this is about priorities prioritizing our money prioritizing our tax money that we pay for and making sure that we are taken care of as a community here particularly when it comes to issues of health care before we put money into expanding jails

1:21:50i just don't think it's it's necessary second of all it's it's troubling to me um the ice detainee portion of it um i i just echo the sentiments that were already said if we have uh room for ice detainees then we're not overcrowded we're just using our facilities in a different manner

1:22:14so once again thanks to everyone who spoke on this item and i will be glad to carry the vote forward okay any other comments i i do okay um and um a short statement and thank you everyone for coming out tonight and i have a statement that supports what uh councilman lyman is suggesting on the

1:22:34letter um up front i wanted to say that i'm going to support this effort and i want to thank council member pardo okamoto for moving this forward my main reasons are a bit redundant to what's been said but to oppose the use of the grant money here because of the potential for the

1:22:51alliance of the ice agents the sheriffs and the relationship to the attorney general sessions who again today took action to disrupt police and prison reform in this country today the ongoing annual county cost that could be put to better use in my view and the mental health promises that uh

1:23:09rochelle talked about which while sound appropriate in my view they shouldn't be centered in a jail facility they should be out in our community where we can help them why should you put people in a jail to give them mental health services there was one other point and having said that one

1:23:24other point i wanted to make that shouldn't be forgotten here on behalf of those locals we live in west county those locals who may be placed in a facility whether guilty or innocent and on behalf of their local families and children i i don't want our effort here to be

1:23:40seen as necessarily opposing any improvements to that facility adding spaces so there won't always be a long distance proximity issue for those going through a personal and stressful time and for our peace officers to make it easier for them can be a worthy goal and

1:23:57we should remember that i've heard some stories about the conditions in the west county facility and we owe anyone who may have to be there and involved in our west county families decent conditions under the circumstances and i'm willing to help in that effort thank

1:24:10you very much thank you you've already said what you're going to say okay okay um so are we ready to vote then okay so the motion was by i've kind of forgotten lyman seconded by quinto okay all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition or abstention motion cares

1:24:34unanimously thank you all for coming and um should we take just like a two two minute uh recess while anyone who wants to leave does so or they can stay for the strategic thing you can though one wants to see what i have to say okay nope you don't have to sit here

1:26:16take their seat thing where'd everybody go i'll go it's okay i think we're ready to get started now um thank you everyone so the next item is the strategic plan goals and strategies report presented by karen pinkos as much as i would love everyone to stay and learn about the strategic plan hint

1:27:53hint hint i guess not that's all right all right well thank you so much your honor and council members i'm karen pinkus i'm the assistant city manager and i'm here tonight to present the strategic plan goals and strategies progress report i've previously presented an outline and

1:28:12elements of the strategic plan to you and we've also done a presentation on the san pablo avenue specific plan so those are the two biggest planning documents that sort of you know drive our lives these days here in the city tonight we're going to be presenting a

1:28:26progress report on the goals and strategies of the strategic plan we'll be going over accomplishments since the plan was adopted provide an update on progress on the specific strategies behind each goal and while i'll be the main driver of this presentation all of the department heads

1:28:41are here before you in the front row this time they're with me tonight as well as the city manager city clerk and city attorney can happy to answer any questions on any of the elements that we'll be discussing this evening okay so we'll start off once again as we

1:28:58did before with a review of our our mission vision and values which are the uh backbone of our strategic plan the vision statement which sets the focus for our future it's our statement of where the organization is going for those of you can't see it the city of el cerrito is a safe connected

1:29:15transit oriented and environmentally focused bay area destination with welcoming neighborhoods thriving businesses and vibrant public places and diverse cultural educational and recreational opportunities for people of all ages this is what we try to envision what el cerrito could be but we have a

1:29:32feeling that it pretty much is our mission statement is the statement of the purpose of the organization it fundamentally defines what the organization stands for and what will do the city of el cerrito serves leads and supports our diverse and transit rich community by providing

1:29:50exemplary and innovative services public places and infrastructure ensuring public safety and creating an economically and environmentally sustainable future listed here are our organizational values they drive our behavior and support effective implementation of the

1:30:06mission visions and goals we hold true to these values in everything that we do and we inspect our employees to do their jobs in accordance with our shared values and those are ethics and integrity fiscal responsibility inclusiveness and respect for diversity innovation and

1:30:22creativity professional excellence responsiveness transparency and open communication and sustainability and those of you that know me know that i hate when people read powerpoints but something like this is really worth reiterating over and over to all of us that's my excuse

1:30:41so the strategic goals which again you've seen before these goals are multi-year in nature so the plan was originally adopted in 2013 and it was updated in 2015 and is meant to guide our work through 2020 so we're in the middle of it right now essentially each goal was created with a set of

1:30:57strategies which are the means to achieve these goals the time frame for implementing the strategies can span several years as specific programs and projects are undertaken so tonight we will again review these goals while providing an update to the strategies in the plan and their

1:31:13progress so the city council has been provided a more detailed progress report in the city council packet which was also available online which outlines whether or not the goal was completed or ongoing in progress or pending and along with a lot of specific accomplishments that we're fulfilling

1:31:29those strategies so you'll notice that many if not most of the strategies will be ongoing and this is because many of the strategies were not necessarily intended to be completed but are a part of the operation of our organization and so i will go through each of the goals and and provide some

1:31:45highlights on the accomplishments and what we've done to fulfill those strategies so goal a is truly a goal that touches every city department because every department strives to provide exemplary services to our residents to our businesses and to our visitors and we

1:31:59take a lot of pride in that work and we're constantly working to improve ourselves and our services to the public many of the achievements in this goal area relate to employee and organizational development using feedback from the community to guide our work and to provide opportunities for all of

1:32:14our staff to shine so as you can see the strategies that all relate to goal a are all ongoing as they're not meant to be ever finished for example some of our major achievements that relate to these include muting using data-driven analysis through the national citizen survey our

1:32:33voter surveys and needs assessments we promote employee development through training which we've enhanced significantly over the past few years including being founding members of the contra costa leadership academy recruiting and retaining our workforce has been a big priority for all of us

1:32:48and we've enhanced that by upgrading for example our application process to be completely online and fully electronic no more paper applications which also goes through our environmental sustainability goal we've increased our outreach to endeavor to hire more diverse candidates we've

1:33:06maintained our excellent benefits provided to city employees and our goal is to be an employer of choice we strive not only to ensure that our programs and our services are inclusive but that we live within with that value within our employees as well we have a

1:33:20great blend of employees from all over that have many varied backgrounds we strive for gender balance and our employees speak several languages so finally our aim is to provide the best customer service possible we look to be as responsive as we possibly can be to go above and beyond what's

1:33:38expected not only of us but of government employees and we try to innovate including things like providing more online services and exceeding the legal requirements for things like public records and transparency goal b specifically relates to financial sustainability but this is not just the

1:33:57responsibility of the finance department all departments need to have this goal in mind when it comes to planning our work and how we best do the business of the city and use our limited resources we have that finite amount of revenue so it's our obligation to spend our

1:34:11taxpayer money responsibly and reliably so many of these goals are either in progress or ongoing operational items for example decision making guidelines that are rooted in the strategic plan and in our city budget our policy recommendations required to reflect how

1:34:27each project program or request fits into these documents including making sure that all of the agenda bills before you reflect that as well we work closely with the financial advisory board on reviewing budgets and financial statements and our policies ensuring transparency and citizen

1:34:43involvement and we've updated those policies to reflect best practices and we're proud to announce once again that our city budget has received both the national and state budget awards so that's a big deal for us we want to improve those documents every single

1:34:58year and so we continue to achieve that goal okay we're expanding opportunity hi can i just ask a question sure you use the term in progress and ongoing can you redefine what those two mean again and when you use them together does that mean you're sure so ongoing is something

1:35:15that's never never meant to be completed it will be part of our operations and something that we're continually doing that you've begun already correct in progress means that yes there are some things that we've we've started to do that we haven't necessarily integrated within

1:35:29the operations completely but that we are working to do that sure for expanding opportunities for business our specific plan our recently adopted economic action economic development action plan that's guiding this strategy and as you've already heard um from melanie for our specific plan when we

1:35:50did the review that there are a lot of developments in process so maximizing opportunities for existing and expanding businesses is something that we have really tried to put the infrastructure in place to do we're very vigilant in seeking out grant funding at every opportunity and we

1:36:06seek out grants that fund big things like major transportation projects or smaller things like a program that helps senior citizens learn how to navigate our transit system we rely on a lot of grant funding to help us go above and beyond the basic services that our

1:36:20city provides as you'll hear later tonight at our mid-year budget we are working to increase our reserves we've made great progress in this area and we do work closely at many levels as you've all reported yourselves with the league california cities to track any

1:36:34legislation that will impact el cerrito goal c is intended to help create a sense of place and community identity that defines el cerrito excuse me this includes all departments however this goal tends to have many strategies that are concentrated within the community development department the

1:36:53recreation department and administration there are a lot of strategies here and a lot of them have different elements to where they are within our timeline strong neighborhoods of course we have a huge focus on the avenue and our commercial base but our city strength is

1:37:12within our neighborhoods and we continually work to enhance this including our hugely successful national night out program our cert program focusing on safe housing including our updated residential rental inspection program citywide garage sale and promoting neighborhood events whenever

1:37:29we can this year has shown us that many of the community initiatives that we've been working on has increased citizen involvement for example the process that resulted in last meeting sanctuary city resolution was absolutely a result of community work including the human relations commission

1:37:45and i think partly because of that and other things that we've been doing we've received a record number of applications on volunteering for boards commissions and committees we've interviewed all of those people we've been working on events and programs that celebrate arts culture

1:38:01diversity and encourage inclusion of all ages and demographics including of course the annual martin luther king rally and parade and our annual 4th of july world one festival but also our new loving day events restaurant week lunar new year our new poet laureate program and a lot more

1:38:19that are in the hopper we do have two completed items on this list one is the economic development action plan which was completed in march 2016 and the other is developing plans for the city centennial which we've all been involved in there are two pending items on this list

1:38:38the first is the adopting the revised general plan so at this time we're monitoring the state office of planning research we're expecting them to release an update of general plan guidelines so our plan is to propose this project for the fiscal year 2019 budget and it'll be based on

1:38:56those state guidelines as well as monitoring all of the units that we're developing through the san pablo avenue specific plan the second pending item is the historical inventory and right now planning staff is working on the first phase of the strategy which would be preservation policies including

1:39:14an ordinance that would require evaluation of historical and cultural significance before a building is demolished so then we will plan to request the appropriate budget and conduct the inventory beginning in fiscal year 2018.

1:39:29goldie focuses on the city's buildings spaces and infrastructure and these strategies are all in progress we've gotten started on a lot of them these have largely been the responsibility of public works and the recreation departments excuse me at an upcoming meeting you will be asked

1:39:47to approve an award to a consultant to conduct a parks and recreation facilities master plan this plan will include all recreation buildings facilities parks and provide a needs assessment and funding estimates and strategies for these facilities it's a huge undertaking it'll provide a large

1:40:02amount of information and data and part of the progress in progress status actually for all three of these strategies considering that that parks and recreation master plan will will cover pretty much all of our facilities except for city hall the corp yard and the

1:40:19public safety building so that's a great deal of our city infrastructure as far as maintenance we're proud to have been recognized by mtc as the best overall pavement management strategy of any jurisdiction in the bay area we have a pavement condition index of 84 which

1:40:34is number three in the bay area so from almost worse to almost first and we that means that we do have a great plan to maintain our streets and we are continuing to do so goodness excuse me we're also in progress on several improvement projects for parks developing a scope of work and

1:40:52maintenance for upgrades at the swim center beginning the process to update the storm drain master plan and as you know we did have a ballot measure for the library it did not pass but as a staff we are now regrouping and discussing next steps to move forward goal e is one that every city really has

1:41:12at its core to protect and ensure the public's health and safety our police department our fire department public works and recreations departments recreation departments all work together on all of these items in our resident surveys over the years public safety is consistently one of if

1:41:28not the top priority we take this obligation very seriously and we feel that in particular our police and fire departments are among the most responsive innovative and importantly compassionate departments in the state if not the country so as far as the strategies these many

1:41:48of these are ongoing and in progress we have increased the focus on transparency making annual reports data crime reports all available online we've also increased our social media presence including nixle twitter and nextdoor and these have been really popular and very

1:42:04great ways to be able to get the word out to the community about what's going on we have increased teamwork among our departments not just to utilize one of the strategies here discusses utilizing environmental design techniques to determine prevent crimes but also to

1:42:20enhance safety for our buildings for our homes and we have what's called our cross-departmental design review team that reviews all developments and works together to solve any sort of issues within new development applications but also is available for any cross-departmental code enforcement

1:42:37items for example that we need to work together to try to resolve we do use data to drive our decision making including things like deployment of staffing providing risk assessments discovering areas maybe where more training is needed in 2015 as a result as a result of that

1:42:55we did we were able to reduce part one crimes oops sorry we're continually reviewing and updating our emergency plans with all departments and we seek to be prepared for emergencies and disasters and we conduct regular trainings and drills to do this we do have and continue our successful

1:43:15partnerships and are proud of our community oriented policing philosophy this includes things like our sro program and our partnerships with the schools and other neighboring agencies our community policing and philosophy i think is one of the best examples was reflected

1:43:32again at our last meeting with the police department's involvement in the sanctuary city process it shows it's just one example of how our police department works with our community and for our community and these are issues that are important to them as far as public health while as a small

1:43:50city you know we don't provide true health services however we are able to promote a lot of programs and services that enhance and do promote public health for our residents and our businesses for example we passed our smoke-free and tobacco retailers ordinances which resulted in

1:44:09an a and most improved from the american cancer society we passed our minimum wage ordinance we have offered senior nutrition programs we have great employee wellness programs we sponsor bike to work day and other walking and biking programs and we continue to seek as many opportunities

1:44:28as possible to promote health and wellness among our residents on to goal f fostering environmental sustainability citywide this is a goal that while it tends to be the oversight of our operations and environmental services division within public works we know as

1:44:45a city than environmental sustainability not only impacts all departments but that all of us can do our share and do our part to try to be as sustainable as possible so we do believe that we are leaders in our policies and programs that promote environmental sustainability and

1:45:02especially considering we're a small city we do quite a bit as you know we have one of the highest percentage of deep green option through the mce clean energy that is an alternative to pg e we have one of the state's most unique and in fact award-winning recycling and

1:45:18environmental resource center our active transportation plan complete streets plan specific plan and climate action plan all serve as the backbone to our citywide sustainability strategies we have great outreach and education programs that are happening through our

1:45:33environmental quality committee through our tree committee working with the schools and we've also increased our outreach and our newsletters and our presence online especially things like our green team events and all the other events and programs that have been

1:45:48established that get people involved in their own neighborhoods as far as our climate action plan i can give you some stats we have absolutely this is in progress but we have been working really well toward our goals so we have achieved a 14 reduction in ghg emissions

1:46:08in 2015 from the 20 2005 ghg baseline we are on track to exceed our 2020 goal of 15 reduction our vehicle miles have decreased by 0.4 percent up to through 2014.

1:46:23ghg emissions from vehicle use declined by 2.8 percent due to the reduced vmt joining mce reduced over 5000 tons of ghg emissions from 2005 to 2015.

1:46:36we've retrofitted 80 percent of our existing street lights in partnership with pg e to be led lights which reduced electricity in those lights by 50 percent our clean water program has achieved 79.6 trash load reduction we've installed trash capture devices and

1:46:55we're developing a green infrastructure framework and we have diverted waste from the landfill and reduced ghg by land of landfill waste by 6.5 percent so this is great progress of course we're still going but this has been integrated within all of our city operations

1:47:16so as staff we decided that we thought that we would try to provide you with a bit of a snapshot of a typical day of a city employee and how we actually live out the strategic plan every day so i asked for a lot of statistics and a lot of data from all of the departments and the

1:47:32thing that i discovered is we're very busy and there's no such thing as a typical day however we can say that as a small city with a small but very nimble staff that we're really proud of all not just of all of the projects that i j and programs that i just described to

1:47:47you that we're able to accomplish but the everyday work that keeps our city running so just a few little tidbits for example at any given day we'll have at least 22 permit counter visits at city hall this includes not just you know having a conversation but perhaps a consultation

1:48:06or a discussion or a plans review or a business transaction so it's not just a quick interaction this is something that we provide service to at least that many times per day at our permit counter right out here our recreation department on average generates about 10 000 in revenue a day

1:48:26they're very busy public safety as you know is 24 7 but just a few little highlights of what may happen in a given day for example a police sergeant will supervise five officers but that's a 12 hour shift so that means overseeing all the training and activities for the day responding

1:48:44and coordinating calls for service arrests reports making assignments and then getting ready to brief the next sergeant for the next 12-hour shift a firefighter paramedic will respond maybe to 10 calls a day and this could be anything from a major fire to some sort

1:48:59of a medical call or to assist someone who is in need and public works will handle on average about four work orders a day and this is in addition to all of the planned projects that they do the work around our city and on our facilities and on our fields this could be anything from

1:49:15an urgent or emergency from having to clear out a storm drain to having to fix a fence that's broken in a park somewhere so they are really able to be nimble and respond we would we divert about 14 tons of recyclables from the landfill through all of our city recycling programs each

1:49:37day this is through curbside pickup as well as what's dropped off at our recycling center our finance department again this can be a bit cyclical but they might process 40 transactions a day this is not only just seeing customers but provide but processing vendor payments maybe

1:49:53sometimes issuing checks and being able to process not only paying out but taking in revenue on any given day thousands of people are served by city employees we might see about again this could depend on what day it is in the summertime for example we might have more kids served by

1:50:14recreation programs but we would probably serve about 350 kids every day we might perform 20 field inspections this is planning building going out and doing building inspections in people's homes code enforcement public works for encroachment permits or those types of

1:50:32things fire prevention going and expecting buildings but also in some months we do hundreds of through our vegetation management process for our fire inspection our firefighter fire department inspections about 300 people may use the swim center a day a lot more if it's a

1:50:53hot day and we probably get about 30 000 calls for service to public safety each year so that translates to about 80 calls a day so to conclude showing the mission statement once more again that's truly what guides us in our not just our major accomplishments but in our day-to-day

1:51:15work so i've been working as i've been working on this it's we have done so much and the strategic plan has been a wonderful road map for all of us to be able to guide what we do the policies that we get from this council the feedback we hear from the community and

1:51:31as staff what our professional best practices are that we try to bring forward to the organization we truly are a thriving city and we're just i'm very proud to work with all of these staff members for all of you and for all of the community so we have a goal setting for the next

1:51:47fiscal year for you scheduled for may 2nd and we will be seeking to hear from you what your priorities are i would ask that you think about over the next few weeks that you consider what goals or strategies may be most important to all of you and considering along with that how we as staff will be

1:52:06able to work with the resources that we have and the time that we have to work with those resources on all of the different priorities that we that we will hear from you so at this point i'm available for any questions all of the departments are available for any

1:52:22questions and thank you so much any questions might be more comments but i have a few thoughts well i think we're going to have a whole session on that that that's what's on may 2nd right as far as the goal setting but if there are any um comments or questions about

1:53:01my presentation or any of the um items that um i spoke about i'm happy to answer those or have departments here to answer those any tankers sure go ahead thank you thank you very much for the presentation tonight it's uh good to see that recapped um and presented to us again uh for those that

1:53:22even those even those of us who participated in the development of some of these some of the things that you talked about one of the items you talked about was the study that's underway for public uh the recreat park and rec uh structures um the swim center the club houses the senior

1:53:42center uh does that include casa cerita and and the clubhouses i got it i'll take that one sure actually that the proposal and contract to do the study will be coming to council first meeting in may so it hasn't started yet but it but it was discussed so is there

1:54:01a comparable uh plan on the books for fiscal year 2019 or earlier with regards to the corporation yard or the public safety building no okay under our environmental sustainability i've said many times that i'm certainly interested in reducing the number of invasives and maybe it will reduce the

1:54:27fire hazard of the hillside natural area just was wondering if if the if that is going to work its way into any of the goals that are on the horizon for uh for that would come forward as a budget item at some point madam mayor members of the council i'm lance maples i'm your fire chief good

1:54:50evening um i can speak directly to that um in the upcoming meeting i believe meeting after next you will see the wildfire protection plan that we've been working on with diablo fire safe council and that will set some of the guidelines and high level decisions that will move

1:55:04forward for both the community of kensington and el cerrito and any costs that are associated with that we will bring back to the table during the budget process great thank you very much um and then there were two things you covered that that certainly were on my

1:55:18radar so thank you for doing that in advance um one they're both in fiscal year 2019 one is the general plan update and the other is the uh historic resources inventory and ordnance so i want to thank you very much for addressing that in your presentation um one last item that i certainly wanted to

1:55:38find out about place making uh from the place making perspective is increasing the hours at the library and and certainly in order for us to consider that at the upcoming goal setting we may need to have some sort of quote provided by the county so i was wondering

1:55:56if there was any plans to get a quote from the library from the the county on uh increasing the hours of the library yep i will absolutely have that available great thank you that's it okay paul i just want to say it's a great report i love the graphs and it's a very useful

1:56:13to someone who's new like me on the council really helps me see what this great city is up to at the may uh event you mentioned that as far as greg mentioned library will it be the tasks going forward on what we may be planning on the library as far as goals um i think that what we would probably

1:56:33like to hear from you is where that fits within your priorities i know that we've been working on that as staff that is part of you know the goal that's already set out before us how we sort of move forward in the next year and in ongoing years from there um is something that we

1:56:49i think we would talk about as far as priorities absolutely michelle um i i just i really enjoyed the presentation i don't have a lot of comments um i look forward to the goal setting session thank you thanks no questions no okay uh the only comment that i have is

1:57:11and i don't know if this is directly about it's about i think i think it it overall it relates to what processes we put into place a couple years ago and that is how it's related to the actual things that the city does so we say this impacts this particular subject area

1:57:35and this thing that we would do impacts that and i find that really really useful is what i want to say because it you know if if it if there were something that doesn't relate to any anything you know then that would have one meaning but if it relates to a number of them

1:57:53for example the subject areas then it it has another meaning and i think that's been very helpful as we go through the year and i hope it's not too hard to produce that i think it just goes to show how all of these goals really truly are citywide that there is an impact on all of us and

1:58:11all that we do and it's been again gathering data every year for this and for the budget process um as we do as you know we reflect all of these in the budget document as well again it's very instructive for all of us kind of helps remind us yeah we've done a lot of we've done a

1:58:28lot of really great things but also helps direct exactly what we need to focus on okay thank you so i i believe we're done with this item at the moment right unless we have a public comment do we have any public comment i have no requests mayor okay thank you with that

1:58:45we'll move on to item 7a which is the fiscal year 2016-17 mid-year budget update good evening mayor and city council i'm mark rosai the finance director i'm here to provide a media update on the fifth on the 16-17 budget and also to discuss amendment council action

1:59:23i will also talk a little bit about our five-year general fund forecast at the end of this presentation just off the top to give you an overview of this point revenues and expenses are pretty much trending within budget except for a few items that i'll discuss in a few moments

1:59:42here starting with general fund revenues i'm happy to report that revenues are trending along budget and here is my agenda for the evening budget trends proposed amendments and a general fund five year forecast and onto the general fund revenues table that is also in your staff report

2:00:07the first column on this has the actual revenues for 1314 we also have actual revenues of 1415 and uh unaudited 15 16 numbers are also presented along along that next to it we have the adopted budget any amendments that we are requesting are seeking and the projected year and

2:00:29estimates for 15 for 1617 and the variance from the adopted budget so as you'll notice from this slide property taxes sales taxes they're all pretty much in keeping with where we are at december 31st of uh 2016.

2:00:49and except for business licenses which i notice has a slight decline there of 29 000 as indicated right here we have everything else pretty much trending according to plan so total taxes are quite close to budgeted numbers of point eight three six million and we expect business licenses to be

2:01:12slightly lower by about twenty nine thousand dollars moving on to the other items on this list we have fines and four features that we expect to trend slightly lower by about 51 000 that's the estimate and the use of money and property to be trending once again a little lower than

2:01:29budget by 52 000 but apart from these two components here the other line items are expected to fall or lie quite close to budget at the end of the fiscal year so the total revenue is 33.9 million in terms of what was adopted and the projected year-end revenue is

2:01:48expected to be 132 000 shy of that at 33.775 million dollars right there so that's the revenue spreadsheet and moving along to the general fund expenditures you may recall that at the time of the adoption of the budget we expected certain vacancies and savings in salaries and benefits and we

2:02:16see some of that here we anticipated 242 000 saving in general fund uh personnel costs in terms of amendments we have a 50 000 request that we have proposed here for council consideration for purchase property and other services that have been outlined in my report

2:02:36uh 12 000 requests in terms of property and capital also outlined in my report and then we anticipate a saving of about 170 000 from the refunding of the bonds that we completed in january this year so overall we expect to have a saving of about 362 000 in terms of uh

2:02:56actual or estimated revenues expenses at the end of the fiscal year in relation to the adopted budget moving along to a quick snapshot of the fund balance projections for this fiscal year again the first column is our 13 14 actual we start out at a fund balance of

2:03:164.2 percent and we estimate that we'll end the 15 16 fiscal year which is the nearly the recently completed fiscal year about 6.8 in fund balance but we expect to make the nine point two percent in fund balance that we had budgeted for in our adopted budget so this is a summary of our fund balance

2:03:34bringing both the revenues and the expenses together plus the carried forward fund balance at the end of the last fiscal year and moving on to the special revenue funds we just have a handful of amendments that we are proposing it begins with the ending fund balance as

2:03:52of 2015 and 16 and once again it's an unnarrated balance the audit is in progress we have projected revenues and expenditures from the adapted budget and the amendments that we proposed primarily for the landscaping and lighting assessment district the street improvement fund and the capital and the

2:04:08capital and the integrated risk management fund and the ending balance is reflected in the last column of that spreadsheet there and bringing the uh so pretty much in terms of what's going on with the special revenue funds we notice that personal expenditures are tracking a little

2:04:27behind on the adopted budget revenues are pretty much tracking with the budget and most special revenue funds will end up with a surplus at the end of the fiscal year and that's our anticipation based on what's been going on for the first six months of the fiscal year

2:04:44so bringing the general fund into focus here this pretty much summarizes for us the adopted expenditures for 16 17 plus the encumbrances that are being carried forward from prior years that have not been spent down but will be spent during this current year 1.9

2:05:00million and the amendments that we seek of 206 000 and that would take us to a total of 50.895 million dollars in terms of the amended appropriations for 1617 and at this point i'd like to pause and take any questions that you might have on any one of these slides or any other

2:05:23issues that you might see rochelle do you have any okay just two quick questions on the um general fund expenditures the tree expenses for the hazardous tree removal did that come from this rainy season is that a recent yes in fact 25 000 is from the recent storms that

2:05:51i will have event answer to that hello good evening council members yvette ortiz your public works director yes a lot of the hazardous tree pruning and removal is related to the storm season and then um mark just generally can you talk about meeting our reserves again what what

2:06:14pace are we on right so as we know the reserve goal is to have 15 over the next five years pretty much uh you know and it actually segues into my next piece the next presentation that i have on my forecasted uh general fund balance over the next five years but to come back to this point we

2:06:32had a reserve balance of 6.8 percent as of 1516 which is the year just recently concluded and we predict that the reserve for 1617 will be 9.2 okay which is key in keeping with the budget that's right here so 9.2 was the adopted budget and we expect that 9.2 percent to

2:06:58be maintained for 16 17 as well for 15 and 16 the year that we just completed we have a reserve balance of 6.8 so you feel pretty good about the progress we're making i feel pretty good about the 9.2 percent at this point and as i move into the next part of my presentation once you're done with this

2:07:16i'll show you what the plan is for the next five years have a question maybe you said this and i missed it but um what is the goal in terms of a general fund reserve so a comprehensive financial policy states that the general fund reserve target is 15 over the next five years

2:07:42and uh that's the goal at this point um a shorter term goal is to try and get it over the 10 percent limit and then work towards the longer 15 goal thank you other questions yeah i do um mark thank you for the presentation and and uh it sounds like you have a continuing presentation that will get

2:08:08more towards our resolution i did notice on one of your early tables that the business license tax and the fine and sorry the license and permit fees you've made some changes over our package the 29 thousand dollar shortfall moved from the license and permit line up to the business and

2:08:30license tax does that does that ripple into our resolution at all so 29 000 actually it was a typo it came out of the license and permits line it should have been the business taxes line item so that was moved up there it does not change any of the totals here that's

2:08:46what i noticed it didn't change in the totals i just was which where it was reported um and then these shortfalls the the business license fine and forfeiture use of money and property these these particular categories of shortfall of revenue do they have a story behind them is there a

2:09:06particular pattern that you're seeing i know in the past we've had concerns over things like the uut and and some other revenue is there a particular pattern here that we should be that that this is the tip of an iceberg that we should be concerned about so going back to the business license it's

2:09:2229 000 shortfall it's simply based on 85 to 90 of our business license is coming by september and we expect that that is it pretty much and so we we would expect to see the number that we had in the prior fiscal year of about 78 787 000 somewhere in the ballpark of that so i

2:09:38took that down by about 29 000 just to bring that in line with that but that's about the only pattern the thing to note here is that businesses expect to be reminded to receive renewal notices they count on that and sometimes when they don't get that they don't come over here and pay

2:09:53their licenses so that's part of the reason why we have that so we make it a point to go back and send them send out the reminders and make sure that they come back and pay their taxes on that so that's that piece on that coming back to your license and permits

2:10:07now that's an interest sorry fines and four features that's an interesting one here because uh these are primarily connected with enforcement actions by pd and we've noticed that uh there has been a slight there has been a decline in the fines connected with moving

2:10:27violations whereas everything else has been pretty much trending on target that that particular line item has shown a significant decline and that i think is in keeping with what's happening nationally as well so that is a trend that you might uh point out in that particular case so i

2:10:44dropped that by 51 000 just to accommodate that difference that we'd seen for the decline in that particular action and i'm going to make a comment there that's a good trend it means it means that people are not in their cars making uh silly decisions to drive too fast

2:11:00um the uh i noticed you've got the sales tax where we projected it to be and that's a good thing and i know that we still have with the home depot property we're still working through our resolution to pay back richmond within that time frame will that does that deal sunset in our next fiscal

2:11:23year or two or three i can't remember when the the deal with richmond would sunset so as at the end of the last fiscal year the outstanding balance was about 540 000 and we typically pay off about half of 250 000 each year so i expect that to sunset by 2018 and thereafter we start

2:11:40collecting moneys back from richmond excellent thank you um and property taxes on the revenue side certainly we're seeing our home values increasing um i noticed you you know we projected the 8 million 792 000 a long time ago is there any evidence to suggest that recent home sales would

2:12:03project us a higher revenue in this fiscal year that's a tough one because if you compare 20 15 and 16 with the budget and if you compare the previous fiscal year with the budget and the budget is not here because it's the actual number that's over here we had budgeted approximately

2:12:227.1 million dollars for that and we came in with 7.9 which is about an 800 000 buck increase on that and i would expect that to continue for the current fiscal year but i can foresee that going much beyond that at this point excellent thank you very much okay have we covered all the questions

2:12:40are there any um speaker slips yes we have one okay how do gowdy oh are you finished i'm sorry there's one final a few more slides on a five-year forecast for the general fund okay and that has nothing to do with the media budget adjustment or the budget mod so

2:13:07once you've given me clearance i'll get into that one okay why don't you go ahead and all finish oh i'm you're going to finish it yes i'll go ahead so as in any forecasting exercise i think the key piece to a forecasting exercise are the assumptions and so what i've done here is put down

2:13:33the assumptions for my five-year general fund forecast for the period 2018 through 2023.

2:13:40the assumptions are fairly simplistic at this point but they are quite powerful in the sense that our top line numbers are impacted and you don't have a slider you don't have a printout of this it's up here on the show here and uh the property taxes are expected to grow

2:13:56at six percent that's an assumption that we make in this and part of the reason for that once again as we pointed out previously is that assessments have gone up and we are currently looking at a three point eight to four four billion dollar proper assessed value within the city as

2:14:11our property tax base i've also assumed that sales taxes and other revenues would grow at three percent uh personnel and non-personnel costs also increasing at three percent slightly above inflation at this point the fed estimates inflation targets to be around two percent and we bump this

2:14:27up to about three percent there are other assumptions that we plugged into these forecasts and i'll show you these in a few minutes the assumptions being that the operating transfers and capital expenditures will remain flat death service will be as per the schedules that we have for our refunding

2:14:43of the city hall debt and that there will not be any new general fund debt and that there will be additional pension costs of about six million dollars over the five-year time frame that we've uh that we have in this forecast so these are the fundamental assumptions that go into our five-year

2:15:02general fund revenue and expenditure forecast that i'm i'll show you next on the next few slides so that being said here is our general fund revenue forecast again i chose to have graphics or numbers because it's a lot more easy on the eye and here we have the first part of this graph or

2:15:26chart is a historical general fund revenue [Music] time series starting with 2013 at 26.7 million dollars we go through 2016 31.7 and the next two years are the appropriations for the budget and then beyond that we run a trend line that shows us revenues on the general

2:15:49fund increasing at this rate from 35.8 million all the way up to 41.7 million over the time frame of this forecast which is from 18 through 2023.

2:16:02so that's your general fund forecast for revenues one of the remarkable things i noticed was that the actual revenues and the budget were pretty tight in terms of a trend line and i was able to use the trend line as a second check to make sure that our forecast was well within

2:16:19the trend so that's the line that you see right here general fund revenues moving across to the general fund expenditure side of the business general fund expenditures in 2013 were approximately 28.6 million and once again we noticed a trend a fairly powerful trend

2:16:37and this trend was extrapolated and it fell within the three assumptions that we made for expenditures which is that expenditures would be within three percent and that some of them would remain flat like for example the debt service payments and so on so that was

2:16:51the general fund trend and into this five-year forecast we've also factored in the pension increase the increase in pension costs due to uh pers changing their discount rate so that was also factored into this discussion here and this was presented to you i think in closed session

2:17:12last month so those numbers have also been fitted into this and then moving across to combining both these on the same graph you will notice that the red line on this graph represents expenses which includes the pension component and the blue line if it looks like blue is the

2:17:30revenue component and these are pretty tight pretty close to each other to the point where you could see that with the pension cost thrown in we are barely covering revenue with expenses or expenses with revenue the broken line here represents what would have been if

2:17:47we had not made those pension payments if those hadn't hit us we would have had a difference of about 6 million between 2018 and 2023 and this piece has obviously been taken out i've shown it as a dotted line it says expenses without pension increase just as a point

2:18:03of perspective to show you how that would have changed had we not had that pension payment and then finally bringing all this together with the general fund balance ratio the one that we have previously at nine point two percent which is the general fund balance as a percentage of

2:18:20total expenditures so back in 2014 it was 4.5 2015 5.1 at the last fiscal year end 1516 we had 6.9 and for the current fiscal day i expected to be 9.2 percent and then from 2018 that's when the pension costs hit us we expect that to level off at around 11 to 12 percent

2:18:42the blue dotted line above that shows us what would have been without the pension cost thrown in there so this gap here is that impact of the six million dollars over that five-year time frame uh on account of the on our unfunded liability and the regular contributions

2:18:59uh the additional pension pieces that we have to contribute to cover those so that is my five-year projection based on what we've had over the last five years plus the two budget years combined projected out from 2018 through 2023 and i'll be happy to take any questions

2:19:18you might have on that okay let's see now then if they're let's finish the council questions then we'll go to the um the audience and then we'll come back for comments from the board okay paul um so on your five-year projection aside from pension costs with collective bargaining about

2:19:44to happen over the five-year period do you assume flat salaries we assume a three percent increase that's it that's included in your projections exactly thank you okay yeah mark uh the six percent uh change in property value growth in property values on an annual basis how

2:20:06does that uh match what we've seen in the last three or four years that's the that's the one assumption that certainly causes me you know most concern because i don't know we've we've ever actually plotted the the growth in property taxes over the over the time i've been

2:20:24uh here so i'm just curious how that six percent um you know matches what we've seen in the last two or three years where we've had a housing boom you know in in town and that was the very same item that gave me a lot of pause because as i was running this thing

2:20:44through clearly property taxes are a significant part of our revenues and what i did was i ran a simple regression on this which is a regression line equation which is statistical technique for forecasting without getting too much into statistics here and in the corn and if you can dim the

2:21:01light for a second here and in the corner of each of these in the corner of each of these slides you'll see a little equation there that is the equation of the general fund expenditure projections on the revenue projection and so on and anyone with a little knowledge of

2:21:19regression analysis will recognize that i have an r squared of about 98 which implies that 98 of the variations in revenues can be accounted for changes in time so that being said if i break this equation down you find that it says 1.5 times x plus 25 25 is our baseline source of revenues 1.5 is

2:21:43the variable component of revenues that increases annually so the big component of this 1.5 is that property tax increase just so that you know that so to answer your question in terms of have i looked back we've looked back as far back as 2013 which is not very far but at least that's been the

2:22:02starting point for this and given that the economic recession was back in 2008 through 2009 and recovery began subsequent to that sometime in 2012 2013 so i didn't feel it was important enough to take the preceding four years into this analysis i would certainly agree with that

2:22:17opinion um where my concern is that six percent right now our property taxes about just under nine million six percent of that is about a half million you're projecting a half million or more growth a year just in property taxes and and certainly i'm just curious

2:22:36what your level of confidence is i saw a 91 percent on a previous slide so i'm just trying to get a sense of if you have the same level of worry over that particular assumption that that i do again like i said i mean it gave me a lot of pause i had to go back and dish

2:22:58this thing out i tend to err on the side of being conservative uh hdl one of our consultants came back with a property tax estimate growth estimate of seven point eight percent and i scaled that back to six percent so just to be safe but then again your point is very valid because as you

2:23:19pointed out on the revenues on the expense side regression equation you find that the variable cost component increases at 1.28 million each year the revenue side variable revenue component increases at 1.55 the difference is your margin that goes into a general fund reserve

2:23:36right which is about 300 400 000 bucks at best right so if you have a swing in your property tax revenues of even let's say one half of one percent that could be wiped out correct but i'm starting at a very conservative point at six percent as opposed to something about that seven

2:23:52point eight or so one percent or whatever that might be right thank you true okay do you have anything um the very last slide that you presented can you explain that more in depth it's especially dealing with the pension increases i'm looking at this right now at

2:24:112018 at 10.1 percent so you see more or less a flat line there so you do not believe that we will be able to uh because of the pension increase have our reserves at 15 is that correct the short answer is yes without the pension increase i would have expected up reserves to move up to

2:24:37about 15 by 2020.

2:24:42and with the pension increase in the first year of the pension increase in 2018 we fork over 300 000 bucks in the second year we hand over 700 000 which has us a million dollars going out the door and by the time we get to 2020 the 14.6 drops to 11.7 percent and that thing builds up to the point

2:25:02where by 2023 we hand over 2 million at this point in time and so the 27.4 drops to 11.4 percent thank you rochelle you don't have any comments okay why don't we then go to the audience right now good evening mayor and council members my name is harry gowdy so i

2:25:39am interested in the uh well so it's always been a little unclear to me on the budgeting for uh electrical purchasing i've encouraged the city to um opt up to 100 renewable power as an option i think since we've had mce for two years it's been sort of something that was budgeted

2:26:03for but needed internal review but so far as far as i know it's it's never happened so i definitely want to reiterate my encouragement for you to do that i think you know mcu has done a very great job at maintaining their cost at or below pg e level so it's to do the 100 renewable option it's

2:26:24simply a penny per kilowatt hour it should be pretty easy to analyze what that commitment would be to the city and i think it would be a big step to meeting your climate action plan requirements so i encourage you to do that um the other small thing i noticed in

2:26:39reviewing the numbers that were were up here is part of that 62 thousand dollar adjustment to the general fund was a twelve thousand dollar vehicle purchase of a previously leased vehicle um i i noticed there's also under a special revenue table there was 138 thousand

2:27:01dollars for um vehicle replacement but that's probably special uh especially allocated maybe a public safety vehicle so i don't know if um that money can also be used to cover this other vehicle purchase or other vehicle purchases in general but it is projected to have 25 000 left so i was

2:27:21wondering why the 12 couldn't come from that or what else that 25 could be used for because i think that in the city investing in municipal electric vehicle charging infrastructure is a very important opportunity as well and i would also further that even though it's great that you know the city

2:27:40has this um honda civic hybrid that they're going to purchase that there are much better choices that would be more consistent with the strategic plan the climate action plan the environmental purchase policy that the city should really aggressively pursue straight electric vehicles both

2:28:01charging infrastructure and the purchase of the vehicles they're not expensive there are new vehicles available with fleet incentives right now for thirteen thousand dollars there's used vehicles three six thousand to eight thousand dollars it's going to save you money

2:28:16over time on fuel and maintenance and the use pattern of city vehicles doing short stops in town for inspections that's the worst use pattern for an internal combustion engine it adds wear and tear and emissions and it's really environmentally and economically more

2:28:42favorable to move to all-electric so thank you thank you are there any other public comments i have no other requests okay then we'll bring it back to the council for comments if there are any more greg no no comments okay no no okay then this item let's see here

2:29:13we need to approve the new spending limits i'll move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito amending the spending authority by fund for the city of el cerrito for fiscal year 2016 2017. we don't need to read the individual fund balances is that

2:29:33correct that's correct okay there's been a motion by lyman seconded by uh pardo okimoto all in favor please say aye aye any abstentions any objections motion carries unanimously that takes us to item numbers and thank you very much thank you thank you uh and that takes us to item 7b

2:29:59and um this was initially presented to me in the form of a draft agenda with just the part of the um on about selecting people for the wall of fame however i thought it was perhaps time for a review so what i would like to do is to divide this in two parts one is to

2:30:22go forward with this year's process because there are applicants and i don't think it's appropriate to change the criteria in mid-cycle so i'd like to appoint two members of this body to that ad hoc committee and those would be [Music] rochelle and also uh i would also like to appoint gabe and

2:30:53um so this would be for purpose of reviewing the two applications that i think have come in and to make a decision about whether or not those people should be added to the wall of fame based on the criteria so that i would like to do that and then separately what i would like to do

2:31:15is to appoint two people to another committee that would come back say sometime in the fall of 2017 with any recommendations and changes to the guidelines for future cycles and to that committee i'd like to appoint paul and then i would like to be on it also because i

2:31:37have some thoughts about it so i don't know if this needs a motion or just need a motion or is it just done uh the mayor has the ability to make the appointments but it would always be useful to get feedback and concurrence from the other members of the council

2:31:57are there any comments first of all none okay uh are there any comments from the audience i have no requests okay is anybody want to make a motion or just let it go happen silence it can be like one of those executive orders wow okay your first executive order oh my

2:32:25gosh i feel so empowered uh so the next item on the agenda is city council local and regional liaison assignments uh rochelle um can you skip to gabe okay gabe sure as uh the alternate to um i'm sorry as the uh alternate to wittack i attended the transportation

2:32:58press conference in concord representing el cerrito and supporting attended the meeting and press conference and uh with the governor uh along with senator kevin de leon and speaker rendon along with the two senator bell and assembly member fraser so i'm proud to

2:33:33say that all the cities in contra costa are supporting that and uh and el cerrito as well okay now i'm ready okay i was able to go to my first arts and culture commission and um it was a great meeting um i just wanted to report on a couple of highlights from that meeting

2:34:00um the arts and culture commission are now going to have an artist residency program it's called the el cerrito creative reuse artist residency and what it will do is give the artist a stipend and access to materials at the recycling center for artistic projects

2:34:29they will have access to things on site from the bins although their artwork will be done in their own workspace and they are accepting applications for this now it sounds like a really interesting uh program and a great opportunity for people that are creative and

2:34:53and can make things out of things that we've already used any questions regarding this or calls from artists can be directed to suzanne iarawa the assistant city assistant to the city manager and um she has um her email is s-e-s-i-a-r-l-a at ci dot el cerrito dot ca dot u s and her number is

2:35:27510-215-4318 in addition some events that are coming up that the arts and culture commission are promoting is the state poet laureate will be coming to the library on april 20th at 6 30 p.m the arts and culture commission will also be participating in earth day and

2:35:55the earth day luncheon at april on april 22nd noon to 1 30 p.m at the community center and finally the commission will be screening this ain't no mouse music and that will be at the rialto cinemas and el cerrito on april 23rd at 10 a.m thank you no reports no reports

2:36:23um the tree committee is going to have a tree planting as part of the centennial events with details to come out in the next week and that will be at the back baxter creek park area right on san pablo avenue i wasn't able to attend the economic development committee but i heard from

2:36:42staff that there may be some work and a resolution on the renaming of the ameri vista country club coming to this body sometimes thank you okay thank you um okay so with that i'm very sad to report that we will be adjourning tonight in memory of charles hernandez

2:37:08uh he attended local schools and was a journeyman welder and he passed away at age 55 which is a very young age and he was the son of former el cerrito mayor willie may hernandez ritz charles leaves behind two daughters katie mae hernandez and also megan nicole jackson

2:37:33and so i'd like to ask you all to join me in ending this meeting with a moment of silence in memory of charles hernandez and offering our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to his family and friends thank you you